Economists had expected total business investment to jump by about 9.5% from the same time last year.

That's a bit of a setback for politicians who are eager to show they're "rebalancing" the economy away from consumption spending. But in general it's considerably better than the picture in Europe at the moment, with growth at just 0.2%. Germany, the continent's biggest economy, only expanded by 0.1% in the same period.

The UK's growth pace isn't quite as rapid as the US, but in general the two countries are performing much more similarly that Britain is with its stagnant neighbours.